Should Everything Really Be “A Product”?

Zoom link available upon RSVP.

How often do we hear inspirational-motivational speeches from C-level executives, when they present at a town hall? Their reassurance about being on the same page about goals, mission, vision, alignment on strategy and execution is usually so strong!

They often talk about a successful transition to becoming a true customer-centric organization and winning the hearts and minds of many customers. But are they really on the same page? Is your organization truly prepared to do what it takes, to shift towards product centricity? Is your organization willing to change it’s structure, HR norms and policies, budgeting and finance approaches?

It is unfortunate that many “let’s go products” initiatives take on the form of a fake productization saga. If the marching order is “We Must Become a Product Organization FAST”, whilst there is no true commitment to challenge organizational design, teams’ structure and traditional status quo, then we might be facing a lot of relabeling and terminology overloading, such as:

• Component teams –> feature / product teams
• Technical tasks –> “technical stories”
• Components –> “products“
• And…. “tech for tech products”

In order to properly shift from being a legacy project/program/portfolio-oriented organization to product-oriented organization and be able to effectively define product(s), your company needs to be prepared to challenge some of its own, historically “untouchable” elements: overall org design and reporting, team structure and staffing models, compensation and incentives, and of course, very importantly, funding/budgeting mechanisms.

In this session, Gene Gendel will share some ideas about what steps should be taken to properly define a product(s) and organically move towards true business agility and becoming a product-centric organization.

About the Speaker

Gene Gendel is the co-founder of KSTS Consulting. He is an organizational design consultant, adaptive & lean coach and trainer, and independent adviser to senior leadership. Gene is a widely recognized, world-class trainer/instructor, and is mainly focused on organizational design and product centricity, the experience for which he has gained, over the decades of deeply embedded coaching and consulting. Gene’s clients represent a wide industry spectrum. Almost 15 of 20+ years of his professional experience Gene has dedicated to working with companies of various sizes and lines of business, trying to help them improve internal dynamics, organizational structure and becoming a better place for people to work in. In his work, Gene uses various methods, tools and techniques to amplify learning of other people and to ensure that his followers gain autonomy after Gene “coaches himself out of the job”.

Over the last decade, Gene’s big focus has been on large financial institutions and consulting companies that struggle with moving away, from traditional budgets and portfolio/program/project work decomposition, towards more adaptive/flexible budgeting and clearly defined products (product-centric, customer-focused development). Gene’s, highly in-demand, LeSS classes and product discovery & definition workshops, both private and public, are based on intuitive system modelling and rich eco-systemic perspective that includes intra-organizational dynamics and market realities.

Gene is one of very few people who has been honored the status of Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC) – EMERITUS – something that is earned after 10 years of having CEC. Gene is also one of the co-creators and holders of Certified Team Coach (CTC).

Since 2015, Gene has built the largest, fastest growing and the most active global Large Scale Scrum community, counting close to 7200 members, from around the world.

Gene is also a frequent presenter and panelist, publicly and privately, with a very diverse gamut of engaging topics.